


On The Inside

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4305843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the Slayers are the enemy, who is your friend?</p><p>It's a complex question, for a vampire like Spike. (Not that there are any vampires like Spike. He's one of a kind.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Inside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waddiwasiwitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waddiwasiwitch/gifts).



Rolling into town, Spike allows himself a little sigh of remembrance. This is how he used to arrive in new places. Big black car (okay, this one’s more of a sedan, but the engine’s a hell of a lot better than the appearance), run over a roadsign, stamp his mark on the place. Assert himself a little.

He’s greeted by a couple of gun-toting locals. “Who are you?”

“I’m your worst nightmare,” he says cheerfully, because he fucking loves his rep. “Or your town saviour, depending on how you look at it. I’m William the Bloody.” Their faces usually change, like he’s bringing life and hope this way. Not so much this time. “Heard you had a Slayer needs taking down,” he adds. Never gets old, being able to say that. 

“Yeah,” says one of the yokels, pushing her cap back on her head and having a good old scratch. “About that. We have a team on it already, and we heard you work alone. But I’m sure they’d move along if they knew William the Bloody was on it, so-“

“Really?” he says, curious. Been a while since he heard of anyone taking on a Slayer, apart from vamps, and the human-vamp relationship hasn’t got any easier since the war, even if the vamps are useful community guardians when there’s a Slayer around. “Nah, take me to them. Let’s see who else has the balls to give it up against a deranged Slayer.”

Wishes he hadn’t, of course, when he meets them. 

“Harris,” is the first thing he says, and it hisses. “Red. Niblet. How’ve you been?” 

Xander tries to get in a punch, and mostly lands it, but Willow sends a quick burst of magic to split them up. “No fighting,” she says, stern like Spike remembers from her summer of running the Scoobie gang with an iron, slightly magically-crazed, fist. “Focus. Hi Spike, heard you were one of the good guys still. Nice to see you.” She almost smiles, but it’s all kinds of lopsided, and he remembers she had a thing going with that martinet Slayerette, didn’t she? So leave alone the situation with Buffy - about which he is not going to ask, but can’t possibly be good - she’s had a rough few months. Not that the war hasn’t sucked mightily for all of humankind, but, harder for some, he can imagine. 

“So, the gang’s all here, huh?” he says. Dawn flinches. Shit. Well, obviously not the whole gang. “You lose many to the plague?”

“A few,” says Willow. “Not sure about all our support staff, we had to get out pretty quick.” 

Yeah. That’d be right. Plague had been bad enough in most cities, but around Slayer Central, with the warrior women going full psycho on their friends thanks to the same bacterium that was killing the weaker members, must have been unbearable. Anyone who didn’t die of plague probably got ripped to shreds by Slayer furies, which probably wasn’t the option they’d have voted for. 

“Any gen on this Slayer hereabouts?” he says, aiming to turn the conversation. But of course, any Slayer, anywhere, is part of this family. And apparently they’re killing those same Slayers anyway. So he shouldn't be surprised that they look away.

"We don't need a vampire to take down a Slayer," says Xander, angry and dismissive as he's ever been. 

Well. He might have cause to resent this one, seeing as Spike's seen off a round dozen crazed Slayers these past months. "Need? Maybe not. But I can expedite," he says. "Make it quick. Give her an end with honour."

Red says, "Xander's right. We don't need you for this job. But we most definitely need help in general. So, want to team up and slay the good guys, by any chance?" She looks certain as she says it; spoils it with a worried glance at her outraged sidekicks immediately after. 

"Sure," he answers. 

He isn't exactly sure why, immediately. Doesn't need them anywhere near as bad as they do him, Willow's words notwithstanding. But he works it out over the next few hours. He is _damn_ tired of loneliness. The company of a few who knew him back when seems like a picnic. Contextually, probably a tasteless feeling, and he's not about to tell them so. But it's the truth. He never has been a solitary cat who walks type. Having Willow tell him off, and Xander play-spar with him, aiming to hurt but not to wound deeply, that's a good time, after too much solo wandering.

Dawn, now. Dawn's more like family, and that's dangerous. She decided sometime before the Hellmouth blew that he warranted feeding once more, and now that there's a survival camp atmosphere some idiot has failed to get her off kitchen duty. Her blood pancakes are a crime against cuisine and haemoglobin, though he accepts them as the totem of acceptance that they are. 

This Slayer is young, and inexperienced. It makes things easy for the Scoobies, battle-hardened by now to take down Slayers trained under the best. It makes things pitiful for Spike. 

He spins it out a few days, because putting down this wench may be a mercy but it'll end his purpose in this place. Catches himself enjoying the comradeship and fearing the day when it must stop. Probably the day when they see how he kills the Slayer, he reckons. They may accept him as a vampire-turned-ally, but they won't like seeing him with blood on his fangs. 

He has found, over time, that there's nothing like the bite for subduing Slayers. They recognise their fate; curl into it, longing for it, even as their hands fumble with half-dropped stakes. Get a good few swallows in, they're fluid under your hands, as fast and perfectly-effective as eating pussy, and twice as delicious. So, it's strategically important, obviously, but he'd be lying if he were to suggest there isn't more pleasure in it than grim duty. After, he'll feel the pain of the lost girl as the weight of his soul descends. But during? Fucking loving it, to be frank. 

And in the end, it's him, and her, and he makes it quick, once her crazy-fast guard falls apart under true fighting pressure. 

"Sorry, love," he says. "It's for the greater good."

But he feels her taste flooding over his tongue, feels himself wax strong with her blood, and he wonders. 

*

The Scoobies decide to keep him around. Apparently they've gotten sentimental in their old age. Or perhaps they're just tired of being the killers. This way, they know who the bad guy is. He's among them, but not of them. 

Spike's going to be watching his back. So nothing's changed there. 

Maybe nothing will.


End file.
